Friday, September 23, 2016

Lew Pulsipher's Doomstar Gameplay Review

The game features a small campaign full of unbalanced missions (the AI is given powerful ships in greater quantities), more fair skirmishes against the AI, and asynchronous online multiplayer. Doomstar incorporates the basic game rules of the classic board game Stratego (simple attack ratings, unknown ship attributes until attacked, highest ship number wins) with a reduced number of units for faster gameplay. The goal is to destroy the enemy command ship with any vessel. Mines don’t move but destroy everything except light fighters and carriers. Fighters can move as many spaces as they want across the board. Battle cruisers and dreadnoughts are the most powerful units on the board. Black holes allow units to move multiple spaces in a single turn, and two set of fighters can attack the same enemy in the same turn. The AI is decent enough at the game to provide a good challenge, although online multiplayer is where the true action lies. Fans of Stratego will enjoy Doomstar, but the feature set is fairly basic.